Over the last twenty-five years three U.S. Presidents and thousands of members of Congress have continually approved some of the most anti-small business, anti-middle class federal programs in history.

U.S. Census Bureau data indicates small businesses are responsible for over 90% of net new jobs, over 50% of the private sector workforce, over 50% of the Gross Domestic Product and over 90% of all U.S. exports.

Every year for the last nine years the Small Business Administration (SBA) Office of Inspector General has named the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants as the number one problem at the SBA.

A recent Gallup poll showed President Obama’s approval rating on handling the economy has plunged to just 35 percent. A series of polls have all found the single most important issue to American voters is the economy.

So what can President Obama do to rescue his poll numbers and the lagging middle class economy?

I have a suggestion. President Obama should keep a campaign promise he made to the nation’s 28 million small businesses in February of 2008 when he stated, “It’s time to end the diversion of federal small business contracts to corporate giants.”

Under the reign of New York City’s billionaire Mayor Michael Bloomberg, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) has issued millions of dollars in business development subsidies to beleaguered urban neighborhoods, meant to create new jobs and promote entrepreneurial spirit. Now the NYCEDC is teaming up with Wall Street to give loans to local food manufacturers, but activists who have examined the city’s development track record smell something fishy.

Economic analysts are giddy about a recent spate of positive consumer-based indicators, on not only housing starts but consumer confidence, retail sales, auto sales and even unemployment. At the same time, in the same economy, the numbers run completely the other way when it comes to the corporate sector. Joe Weisenthal runs down the numbers. Some of them are sentiment-based, which I view with similar skepticism around a national election as I do with things like consumer confidence. But there are hard numbers around capital expenditures, and export growth, and corporate hiring plans, and even corporate profits, that have all turned negative.

The White House is on a veto spree today. They threatened to veto the House’s new 90-day surface transportation extension because it includes a quick approval of the Keystone XL pipeline. Without an explicit veto threat, they “oppose” any version of a cybersecurity bill that violates user privacy. And they threatened to veto a not-so-small business tax cut bill expected out of the House this week.

Last year, the watchdog group Citizens for Tax Justice put out a paper showing that 30 Fortune 500 companies had a negative tax rate for the cumulative years 2008-2010. Extending that through 2011, there are still 26 such companies that paid “negative” income taxes.

House Majority Leader Eric Cantor claims to be soldiering on with a new set of jobs bills, necessary because the GOP has become defined by their attention to culture war issues rather than what brought them to the House majority. But these plans are either small beer or just another manifestation of the “tax cuts forever” ideology that’s so fashionable in Washington.

There is a lot of discussion these days about ‘buying local’. There is even a national organization with chapters which promotes it (along with a lot of other local initiatives) Local Economies . American Express just sponsored, for the second year, a national event called “Small Business Saturday” to encourage people to buy with small businesses (not only local; and as an incentive, they offered a credit off the customer’s bill for buying at a small business).

But, when it comes time for us, as consumers, to actually find local businesses, it might not be so easy.